5 Reasons Why Open Innovation is Relevant to You
Where might your organisation benefit from open innovation? Do you have the technologies or commercial insights or partners you need to get your product to market? Have you considered how open innovation could accelerate you to commercial success?
How can you get your products to market more efficiently? You have great ideas, a great team, investors onside. All is well, but somehow the final piece of the puzzle doesn’t quite fall into place.Issues with the technology, commercial strategy or overall product concept keep you from getting to market. How can you overcome these hurdles? Whilst traditionally the answer would be to keep working on a solution within your own four walls, your chances of success increase dramatically if you explore options from beyond your own organisation. From start-ups and SMEs to large multinationals, “open innovation”, or the adoption of knowledge, solutions and capabilities beyond traditional organizational boundaries, has been used to successfully bring products to market more efficiently time and again. So, if you’re not already using it, why should you consider using open innovation to support product development programs within your organisation?
It is surprising how often problems in one industry have already been explored and solved in another. Organisations seeking to keep manufacturing facilities clean have learnt from anti-fouling coatings on ships, food manufacture from control of emulsions in the personal care industry, and agricultural land surveying from military drone technology. There may also be situations where one industry is trying to remove a particular issue, which actually represents a potential solution to the challenge you are facing. Further, by combining multiple external technologies, something even more powerful might be realised, providing a better solution than any approach on its own. It is certainly worth exploring whether someone else already has an answer waiting for you, or if something can be combined with your existing approaches.
You are living and breathing your technology and your product concepts. No one knows it like you do, right? That also means that no one else has the baggage like you do. Seeking external support to better define the problem, challenge your conventional wisdom and provide stimulus for problem solving may be what you need to take your product to the next level.
With the best will in the World, you cannot have a monopoly on relevant expertise for your area of interest. In this age of spin-outs, start-ups and regular restructurings, this is even more true now than ever before. There are likely people beyond your organisation who can help to accelerate you to success. Why not tap into that expertise as well as that available to you internally?
You may be happy with the performance of your product in its home market. But what if it could be launched into a whole new market or geography. Imagine the possibilities! By partnering with organisations or experts already playing in those areas, you may have a quick route to capitalising on these opportunities through expansion of product portfolios, access to their technology, use of new brands or even price points.
There is lot to be said for checking what customers want before you go too far! By engaging with external users and stakeholders, it is possible to obtain feedback on existing products or technologies to identify frustrations and unmet needs. This may yield new product concepts or even whole new markets and opportunities for you and your company.
Conclusion
Open Innovation can be a powerful addition to your internal capabilities, by providing access to:
This post was written by Fresh Perspectiv
About Fresh Perspectiv
Fresh Perspectiv Limited is a science and technology innovation consultancy. We work with SMEs that are developing tangible science and technology products and services and are struggling to overcome technical or commercial challenges.
Nigel Bailey and Lucy Tucker
Fresh Perspectiv